Adam Levine shot for the stars with one Maroon 5 song and almost thought it would end his career.
The singer and bandmate guitarist James Valentine appeared on “The Howard Stern Show,” where Levine shared how music producer Benny Blanco approached him with the song “Moves Like Jagger.” At first, Levine shared, he was conflicted and wondered if it was a “career ender.”
“Benny came to us. He knew our manager,” Levine said. “He brought me a song. It was funny because I was like, ‘Man, this m————- song is either a career ender, or it’s the biggest f—— thing on the planet. I don’t know.’”
Levine recalled the song being written from a female perspective and after listening to it thought, “I guess I could say, I got the moves like Jagger — and the whole room gasped.”
“It was a huge swing, but we did it and, you know, the rest is history,” he added.
“Moves Like Jagger,” which features Christina Aguilera, was released in June 2011. The song became Maroon 5’s second number-one single and Aguilera’s fifth, staying on the Billboard Hot 100 top spot for four weeks.
During his appearance on “The Howard Stern Show,” Levine recalled Coldplay frontman Chris Martin giving him an honest review of the song.
“It’s funny, Chris Martin said the best thing ever about ‘Moves Like Jagger’ when I met him years ago — and it made me laugh so hard and was so true because it was just so honest,” Levine said. “He was like, ‘Man, when I first heard that song, I hated it.’ He’s like, ‘And then, I listened again and then I just fell in love with it.’”
“The Voice” coach said that he found that perspective to “be so true” because he initially didn’t know if he liked it.
“But then it’s like this delicious piece of candy. Once you hear it a few times, you’re like, ‘OK, let’s just have fun, This is such a great, f—— song, who cares,’” he said.
Back in March while on “Behind The Wall” with Daniel Wall, Blanco, who is engaged to Selena Gomez, recalled making “Moves Like Jagger” for Maroon 5.
“We get the song done. (Adam) loves that song, everyone at radio thinks I’m an idiot,” Blanco said, sharing how, at the time, Maroon 5 already had “Never Gonna Leave This Bed” as their single.
Blanco said the band’s longtime manager, the late Jordan Feldstein, called him to tell him how Levine was going to be part of a new show called “The Voice.” Feldstein, according to Blanco, wanted the band to debut “Moves Like Jagger” on the NBC show and not tell their record label, who thought they were performing “Never Gonna Leave This Bed.”
“They perform the song,” he said, and the label got upset. However, the song became an instant hit.
“The next morning, it’s No. 1,” Blanco said. “The label goes, ‘Change the song at radio, immediately!’ They change the song and never looked back.”
“That started such a great journey with me and Maroon 5,” he said, adding that they’ve released a couple of No. 1 hits like “Animals” and “Payphone.”
Just this week, Levine revealed on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” that Maroon 5 is releasing a new album this summer and going on tour in the fall.
Additionally, after departing “The Voice” in 2019, Levine returned to the singing competition show and is currently a coach on Season 27, now airing.
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